In her quest, Holmes receives support from her professor, Channing Robertson. A subreddit dedicated to conversation about Theranos, the healthcare company founded by Elizabeth Holmes in 2003. design fiction methodology And then there is Theranos, the biomed startup founded in 2003 by Robertson's student Elizabeth Holmes when she was still an undergraduate and where he's now an active director. I think I, just reading this now, interpret it as I agreed that we should start engaging with the other retail opportunities that we had. They say she would become angry and sometimes fire people who pointed out problems. Coopersmith said that the notion that Theranos employees were afraid of Balwani was inaccurate. With the help of some Stanford Chemical Engineering undergraduates, Robertson demonstrated to his own satisfaction that the multifilament string was indeed 'wicking' bacteria into the vulnerable environs of the uterus. He would eventually leave with Elizabeth when she founded the company that would become Theranos. And like everyone else, the trio quickly caught on that things were not quite right after joining the team to help design the look of the Edison. She also adopted a dog, named Balto, though she tells people he is "a wolf" when they ask his breed. Reed Kathrein, an attorney who sued Theranos on behalf of several investors, deposed Robertson in May 2018 and told Jarvis that as of Robertson's deposition, "He was still a believer in the company. Dr. Gardner still teaches at Stanford and still has zero time for Holmes, calling her out for her (presumed) fake accent andaligning "herself with very powerful older men who seemed to succumb to a certain charm," per her interview in The Inventor. Looking back at it now, I absolutely wish we had handled our communications differently.". Irwin plays Channing Robertson in The Dropout, a Stanford professor who became one of Holmes' earliest champions and enablers, even serving on the Theranos board. "His father tragically died at a pretty young age of a heart attack in India, and Mr. Balwani felt that the the healthcare was not what it should have been -- that if he had had the right test, if they had diagnosed the problem, his dad might still be alive today," he said. [7] Even as Theranos was coming under growing scrutiny, as of May 2018, Robertson still believed the company was successful in developing novel blood testing technology. The company declined to provide financial information, but she was adamant that Theranos does not currently need more money. "Grateful to @VicThompsonABC's 20/20 #Theranos #TheDropout documentary team. This is episode 5 of "The Dropout," a six-episode ABC Radio podcast about the fall of Elizabeth Holmes' startup, Theranos. I was credulous and I was taken with her story and I didn't pursue certain leads that I could have, but I think I asked her the right questions.". While Holmes and her counsel did not respond to our repeated requests for an interview, Balwani's attorney, Coopersmith, agreed to join ABC News' Rebecca Jarvis for his first in-depth conversation. He should have been prosecuted for forcing the poor Gibbons to do suicide. Ciresi was lead council for the State of Minnesota and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota in a suit against the major cigarette manufacturers. The Dalkon Shield was marketed for just three years, between 1971 and 1974. Graphic for the "Nightline" feature, "The Dropout. In 2002, he met Elizabeth Holmes during her freshman year in college. Their conclusions were disturbing. You walk in the room, and the question is, What is your exit strategy? recalled Ms. Holmes of some of those visits to potential backers. "I think it's pretty convenient not to be able to remember something like that, under oath.". Walgreens didn't officially terminate its relationship with Theranos until about eight months later, but within two weeks after Carreyrou's first article was published in 2015, Walgreens halted the expansion of its Theranos Wellness Centers. Coopersmith also said Balwani doesn't hold Holmes responsible. Heres everything we know about Channing Robertson! Robertson was an Emeritus Professor of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University, and he worked at Theranos and served on its board . Theranos said it was restructuring and that he was going to retire. Entertainment Television, LLC A Division of NBCUniversal. She had come up with an idea for a drug-delivery system that would be able to detect drug levels in the blood and wirelessly transmit those results. Robertson was one of the stars of the Stanford faculty. I believe wholeheartedly he knew and understood based off her patents schematics it wasnt possible. So yeah I've learned some rough lessons. Channing Robertson, Theranos technical adviser . Carreyrou and The Wall Street Journal firmly stand by his reporting. She had every pharmaceutical company eating out of her hand, one former employee said. I believed in her. She energetically turned her attention to venture capital firms dozens of which took a look, and in early fund rounds the company was turned down by some of Sand Hill Roads biggest names, according to former Theranos employees, none of whom would speak for attribution, fearing retaliation from Theranos. Tyler Shultz, the grandson of George Shultz, one of Theranos' former board members, says CEO Elizabeth Holmes knew the company's devices couldn't perform all the blood tests she claimed they could. "People didn't want to actually know the number of times that we were having issues because they were starting to realize we were having them so frequently," Cheung said. an attorney suing Theranos on behalf of investors asked Christian Holmes during his deposition. He originally joined the faculty of Stanford in 1970, and formerly served as the Ruth G. and William K. Bowes Professor and Senior Associate Dean for Faculty & Academic Affairs in the School of Engineering there. The US . ", Shultz: "And I just heard about PT data in passing. Irwin is known for his exhibitions in different . They saw as far as a new blood sugar or cholesterol test, but, she said, we want to build a whole new lab.. Additionally, the Theranos technology relies on pricking a finger, rather than using a needle, to draw blood. According to Parloff, Boies wasn't present for any of the conversations he had with Holmes, and he said he went through the fact-checking process for the story with Holmes alone. Channing Robertson. A Silicon Valley story with intoxicating appeal, Theranos by some measures has a $9 billion valuation because, in part, of its claims that its proprietary technology has the potential to disrupt the established players in health care. Ms. Holmes says that from an early age, she was obsessed with going to Stanford, a symbol of Silicon Valley and invention.. Kathrein pointed out that Holmes paid Robertson, who served as a board member, more money than any other Theranos employee. I became really interested in the concept of building a company that could be a vehicle for making a difference because you can control your outcome, she said in the interview this month. Many of the companys early efforts were far from successful, according to five former employees. Attorney: "Do you think at the time there was a connection between him leaving the company and him and your sister stopping living together? She wanted to study medicine but was afraid of needles. But Theranos was leaving them off the test demonstration reports. Holmes' brother, Christian Holmes, was asked about their relationship in a 2017 deposition he gave for an investor lawsuit against Theranos, obtained by ABC News and featured on "The Dropout" podcast. She knows she has to make money. She often spoke as though the companys technology already existed, they said, rather than as if it were still in development. In fact it is at the agencys mercy. After Dr. Gardner kept rejecting then-freshman Holmes' idea, telling her it was impossible, she moved on to Channing Robertson, Stanford's professor of chemical engineering and . Time released medications have been studied for 30+ years and I actually know many other inventors of different time releasing biomaterials. You know, I began to drink the Kool-Aid. Bad Blood Runs in the Family. "It was just a 19-year-old talking who'd taken one course in microfluidics, and she thought she was gonna make something of it.". Is The Dropouts Don Lucas Based on a Real Person? Their claims about their secret, groundbreaking technology that was made to patients, to investors and to the public, were under fire. WAG freaking out. Every evening, around seven thirty, he made a fly-by of the engineering department to make sure people were still at their desks working."With a board of directors including Henry Kissinger, 94 years old, with top venture capitalists on board, with her original Stanford chemistry professor Channing Robertson, receiving a 500,000 dollars check . ", Balwani: "Well there was a lot of trade secrets here.". But that's not how Holmes presented the company's capability to Parloff. She was looking for patient investors. By 2017, when SEC investigators got to Holmes and Balwani, Parloff had already published a mea culpa and a correction in Fortune, but the damage was done. But by summer 2017, the SEC was investigating Theranos, Holmes and Balwani. But he said he kept pressing Theranos for answers. In 2000, he was featured in a special issue of Upside, entitled "100 People Who Have Changed the World". It started out with Channing Robertson, the well-regarded Stanford engineering professor who would join her board, encouraging her and putting her in touch with people he knew around the Valley. Despite the fact Holmes said she "doesn't know" or "isn't sure" about something hundreds of times, Kathrein, who sued Theranos on behalf of investors, said it wasn't possible the company's founder and CEO was blind to everything going on. Channing Rex Robertson is Emeritus Professor of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University. I was in the presence of somebody who was unlike anything that I had seen before. Holmes and her counsel did not respond to ABC News' repeated requests for comment. IUDs are attached to a string for removal, but the Dalkon Shield's string, Klein told Robertson, had been made not of a single strand, but of multiple fibers. He is a founding fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. Bill Irwin as Channing Robertson in The Dropout <> at Delacorte Theater on June 12, 2017 in New York City. Fame is a rare thing for a chemical engineer, but Channing Robertsons exalted reputation in the fields of medicine, law and engineering is about as close as it comes. It begins in the late 1970s, with a phone call from a lawyer in Californias San Joaquin Valley and Robertsons subsequent discovery that he had an aptitude and appetite for delivering high-stakes explanations of scientific fact. Aug 2020 - Oct 20222 years 3 months. After giving up 15,000 Apple shares to help Holmes in her mission to change the world, Arriola quickly began noticing Holmes' odd behavior, including her obsession with Jobs. Without him, what are the chances she would get the all-star board - and ultimately big whale investors? During their separate 2017 depositions, the SEC asked both Balwani and Holmes why they concealed that information. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. Despite Holmes' ability to charm older white businessman, assembling an impressive all-male board of directors at Theranos, there was one person who told her what she was trying to do was impossible from day one: Dr. Phyllis Gardner, the well-respected and revered professor of medicine at Stanford. Eventually, well get there, she said. ", Holmes: "In the sense that there was an overhaul in the management structure and there was a reflection of that in her personal life, sure.". But after Holmes's conviction in January 2022 of four counts of fraud, Gibbon's widow told The Daily Mail: "'Ian would be very happy. Bring him to court and at the very least destroy his character. But Elizabeth took it to a new level.". His and so many other stories like it had made the rounds, potentially convincing patients to take Theranos tests and doctors to recommend them. ", Coopersmith's response to the misleading marketing campaign was that "it never said that's the only way it would go.". "He oversaw the lab operations from a business perspective," Coppersmith said. But when pressed for examples, the company did not provide details. SEC attorney: "How many tests could it run at that time in 2010? Craig said the only way Holmes wouldn't remember what she meant that day in her text exchange with Balwani would be if "she had serious head trauma. Lawyer Reed Kathrein, who represented the investors who sued Holmes, alleged that Robertson was hired merely to provide credibility to Theranos. So she shared the information with Shultz, who was in a unique position because of his ties to Holmes and the board of directors. Her younger brother, Christian Holmes V, is an executive at Theranos, as is her former Stanford professor, Channing Robertson. He was the most hard working person pretty much I've ever met.". Is He Dead or Alive? I think we were all motivated by the fact that you can't endanger the life of patients. ", Holmes: "He spent a lot of time with David and David's PR person. Ms. Holmes insisted that she was the one being choosy. The other big Theranos whistleblower who spoke to Carreyrou, despite intimidation tactics from the company so severe she even used a burner phone for a period of time, Cheung now lives in Hong Kong, and per the LA Times,runs an early-stage technology accelerator called Betatron for founders and start-ups. Robertson agreed, provided he could first test the devices himself. "Mr. Balwani committed no crimes," his lawyer told Vanity Fair. How an unassuming professor of chemical engineering helped save lives, change forensic science and bring down Big Tobacco. Robertson backed her up and ended up becoming a Theranos board member. And she didn't look like the boss he had worked for years ago. Unlike Holmes, Balwani did not agree to the charges against him from the SEC, and the case is ongoing. "She's changing health care as we know it with two drops of blood she runs this test through a microfluidic chamber and it runs 50 different blood tests," Draper told Jarvis. "For example, the Wall Street Journal report relies heavily on a particular employee named Tyler Shultz, who was George Shultz's grandson," Coopersmith said, referring to the former secretary of state. Holmes and Balwani each were charged with nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, to which they both pleaded not guilty. Hulu/Courtesy Nicky Endres - Ana . Mr. Holmes took a Hearst daughter to a debutante cotillion in 1967. "These people who become scientists and artists and musicians, I think, possess a very special capability. In short order, Theranos raised more than $400 million, giving it, at one point, a valuation of $9 billion. The first to fall under her spell was Channing Robertson, the Stanford engineering professor whose reputation helped give her credibility when she was just a teenager. Robertson proves to be a source of confidence for Holmes, and his presence is crucial to Theranos in its early days. At the time, about 40 had been opened in California and Arizona. By 2016, Holmes' group of supporters was shrinking. Another claim from the Fortune article said Theranos "does not buy any analyzers from third parties." Well, I can't fiddle with the punctuation.". After constantly questioning Holmes, Tevanian was eventually confronted by other board members and when he said he would only stay on if she was replaced by a more qualified person as Theranos' CEO, the board sided with their young boss. He took on important roles in international trade and disaster relief, and his daughter recalls a home filled with photos of her father in conflict- and disaster-ridden areas around the world. Robertson was one of the stars of the Stanford faculty. Holmes resolves to develop her concept for a microfluid blood-testing device and revolutionize the blood-testing industry. Tag: Channing Robertson Holmes and the Theranos Affair. Lawyer: J. Channing Bennett: Phone: 971-239-0543, 503-581-1501: Fax: 503-581-5891: Lawyer Title: Partner: . They have a reputation, and business to uphold. Parloff had worked with Boies on a number of other stories and said Holmes and her monumental mission convinced him this latest Boies' pitch was worth pursuing. "When he was working there, he worked 24/7, and I think there was a burnout factor and it was time for him to move on. Another board member with a sterling reputation was Channing Robertson, the associate dean of Stanford's School of Engineering.

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